


Exit Strategy

by 8sword



Series: Aim to Please [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover Pairings, M/M, hurt without much comfort, porn without plot kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2273055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whatever," Dean says. "Look, I got a room if you need somewhere to stay the night. If not, just tell me where to drop you off."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit Strategy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orange_8_hands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Aim to Please](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233959) by [8sword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword). 



> This also started as a headcanon for orange, and then got long. CHEERS, ORANGE, MY FRIEND. (My pleas continue--please, someone, WRITE FICS FOR THIS SHIP.)
> 
> This one takes place after "Aim to Please." Timing, as usual, is all fucked-up--this takes place after 5.03 ("Free to Be You and Me"), when Sam and Dean have split up, and shortly after the events of CA: WS for Cap. I am aware these years totally do not line up canonically. My bad.
> 
> Unbeta'd.

Steve ducks out of the department store with his shoulders slightly hunched beneath his hoodie jacket. He sees in the dark, reflective store window of the shop window on his right that he's walking too fast; he immediately modifies his pace to something slightly more sedate, falling into step beside two women pushing strollers toward the small, fake plant-encircled fountain on the other side of a square of vending machines. There's several children standing on the wooden ledge-seat that surrounds the fountain, throwing pennies into the water and shouting wishes as a group of teenagers push each other playfully back and forth in front of the soda machines. Steve angles away from them, muscles taut with the fear of them getting caught up in a firefight between him and the dark-suited man that followed him into the department store.

He can't believe he's gotten himself caught in this situation _again_ \--better last time, when Natasha was with him, well-trained in undercover situations and in minimizing civilian collateral damage, but this time he's on his own, only Sam on his phone for back-up, and he's three hundred miles away right now, not due to meet up with Steve for another thirty hours.

He strolls around a kiosk selling jewelry, hands in his pockets, and checks the reflection in a shoe store window--the man in the suit has just rounded the corner that Steve did thirty seconds ago, and is scanning the shopper-scattered space in front of him. Steve catches his breath, hand sliding out of his jacket pocket to slide inside it, slowly. He can taste his heart pounding in his throat. Sidesteps a man carrying a little girl on his shoulders to step toward the tall, fake potted trees surrounding another, larger fountain, and--

His jacket collar is grabbed and he's pulled down with it, into a warm mouth.

His heart nearly propels itself out of his throat. He blinks, overwhelmed by the surprise and the sense of déjà vu, and then surprise again, as he recognizes the warning green eyes staring back at him.

Dean tugs him down to sit on the wooden ledge that surrounds the fountain without breaking contact between their mouths. He closes his eyes, the movement pointed like a command, and Steve obediently shuts his own, too, remembering how Natasha did this, and involuntarily cataloguing the differences between her kiss and Dean's, and this one and the last time he kissed Dean, when it was short and close-mouthed but somehow deeper than this one, which has Dean's tongue sweeping into his mouth in slow, obvious strokes as Dean cups his head with one hand.

He finally pulls back. It's with a soft _pop_ from their mouths, and an unintelligible sound from Steve, who can only stare at Dean as Dean, still keeping Steve close with a hand on the nape of his neck, looks over Steve's shoulder. His head is tilted forward and a little to the side, his hair brushing the bottom of Steve's chin like he's leaning into him, but his eyes are watchful and unaffected. "Slouch down a little, he's looking this way."

Steve obligingly lowers his shoulders, leaning close enough to look like he's inhaling the scent of Dean's hair, which--oil and sweat and the faintest scent of fried things, like he's been spending time inside a coffee shop. Dean leans into the motion and sifts the hand on Steve's neck a little higher to comb his fingers through the short, bristling hairs there. His gaze is still focused over Steve's shoulder.

"There we go," he says after another ten seconds. "He headed toward the Food Court." His hand doesn't stop sifting through Steve's hair, though. He pulls back enough to make eye contact. "You got an exit strategy?"

 

That's how Steve finds himself in the passenger seat of Dean's big black car, rolling out of the mall's parking garage. He keeps his chin against his chest, head downturned so the bill of his baseball cap covers his face, as they pass the corners and then rumble through the exit with its booth and security camera, sliding the pair of big aviator sunglasses Deans hands him over the plastic-framed glasses he was already wearing. He can't get over how ridiculous it is, ridiculous _he_ is, in this near-re-enactment of his mall chase with Natasha, and if everything wasn't so grave, he might be fighting a smile at the thought of what Sam will say when he finds out.

"You gonna tell me who the mook was, or is my security clearance not high enough?"

Steve's guts sink the way they do every time he thinks about what SHIELD did, what it was all along. "I don't do that anymore."

"What?" Dean doesn't look over at him, his eyes on the windshield and hands on the steering wheel as they merge onto the interstate. "The superhero thing?"

"The…yeah. For now."

A brief silence, in which Steve knows Dean is thinking about why Steve was trying to shake a tail if he's not involved with SHIELD anymore.

"Let me guess," he says. "You can ditch the life, but the life doesn't ditch you."

Steve laughs. It's a tired sound. "Pretty much."

Dean's mouth curves. Not quite into a smile, something too sharp and too bitter to be one. For the first time, Steve takes in the way Dean is watching the road, the weary, unblinking gaze. He's seen that look before, on men on the fronts in France, in Russia, in Germany--men who have seen death so many times they already belong to it.

(He thinks of Bucky's empty eyes, inside the black paint.)

"Where's Sam?" he makes himself ask.

Dean doesn't say anything for a minute. Then he gives a shrug.

Steve's insides clench. "He's not--"

"No."

He doesn't say anything more, so Steve doesn't, either. He watches Dean's profile from the corners of his eyes, as the sun begins to set behind them. The light turns deep, deep gold, and then a darker, bloody orange.

Eventually Dean stirs. "Where'm I taking you?"

The safe house Steve was using is most likely compromised. His rendezvous with Sam still isn't until tomorrow afternoon, and…

He looks over at Dean. "What are your plans?"

"Honestly?" Dean raises his eyebrows, still not looking away from the road. "Buy some Johnny Walker and get drunk. Pass out till 2014."

Steve looks at him.

Dean doesn't look away. He doesn't have to; his eyes are already on the road.

"What's really going on with you, Dean?"

Dean's face goes sharp. "What's really going on with you, Cap?" he parrots back sarcastically.

Steve doesn't flinch. He takes a deep breath, instead. "I'm trying to find an old friend. Those men, who were tailing me--they don't want me to find him."

That gets Dean's eyes on him, for the barest second. "Old friend. Do you mean, like--"

Steve's smile is bittersweet. "From the forties? Yes."

Dean's bottom lip goes under his teeth. He chews on it for a minute, looking abruptly much more like the Dean Steve first met, the one who tried on his uniform so shyly. "You want help? I mean--" he adds hurriedly when he sees Steve's face, "I know I'm not--one of you guys. But I could--"

"Absolutely not," Steve says.

It's the wrong thing to say. Dean's expression shutters over again, the flat mask smoothing out his face.

"Sure," he says. "Just thought I'd offer."

"Dean," Steve begins. "It's not about--you do good work, doing what you do. Saving people and--I don't… I don't want to drag you into--"

"Whatever," Dean says. "Look, I got a room if you need somewhere to stay the night. If not, just tell me where to drop you off."

 

In Dean's dim motel room with its two queen beds, one completely untouched and the other with a single rumpled comforter like someone slept on top of it, Steve stands in front of the mirror outside the tiny bathroom. His fake glasses are off, safely tucked into the pocket of his jacket, folded on the empty bureau. Now he's just in a plain gray t-shirt that he lifts, exposing the puckered wound on his torso where a bullet clipped him yesterday. He traces the dry, healing edge with his fingers, his mind more on Dean than the wound. In the mirror, he can see Dean's reflection behind him, the slack line of his shoulders beneath his jacket as he sits down at the tiny table near the window. He's little more than a silhouette in the weak light spilling out of the bathroom door and the even weaker light from the parking lot making it through the cheap curtains.

Steve bites his lip, remembering the last time they were in a dark room together. The sly sparkle of Dean's eyes as he took Steve apart, the green eyes that are now as dull as Bucky's were, above his muzzle-like mask.

He lowers his shirt.

Takes a deep breath. Thinks achingly of Bucky, and then tries not to think of him, and goes to crouch on his knees in front of where Dean sits at the cheap little table.

Dean already has a bottle of beer at his lips. He looks down at Steve in confusion, eyebrows knitting together.

Steve places his hands gently on Dean's knees. They feel suddenly, clumsily large, and Dean starts to withdraw, pulling his feet back under him, but Steve holds on. Slides his hands up till his thumbs are hooked through Dean's belt loops, and then he rests his forehead against the rough denim of Dean's jeans.

Everything is very still for a moment. Then Steve hears the quiet clunk of the bottle being set down.

Dean's hand comes down to Steve's head. It's still slightly wet and cold from the beer. His thumb presses against Steve's scalp, through his hair, and then his fingers sift into his hair like they did at the mall, moving carefully through it.

Steve turns his head on Dean's thigh to look up at him. Tightens his hold on his waist.

"You don't have to tell me," he says quietly. "But I'm here if you want to."

"I want--" Dean begins roughly, then stops, like he's second-guessing it. Is silent for a minute. "I want not to think about it."

Steve draws up on his knees, and pulls Dean closer by his belt loops. His thighs press in on either side of Steve's chest. Steve slides Dean's shirts up, and begins to press kisses along the curve of his clavicle, and his sternum, and then, open-mouthed, the nubs of his nipples. He works his way down Dean's torso, sometimes open-mouthed, sometimes closed, until he's nuzzling the trail of hair leading down into Dean's jeans,  his thumbs digging firmly into the spurs of his hips to keep him still. Dean's hands twist uselessly in the collar of Steve's t-shirt, stretching it out, and when Steve opens his mouth to lick along the strip of skin, he makes a sound like a breath and like a cry, and slides down off the chair, reaching for the button of Steve's khakis.

Steve murmurs, "Wait," into his skin and guides him backward onto the bed with his mouth and his hands, their lips barely parting. Dean settles over him, hips moving restlessly, and Steve bites Dean's lip, rolling his own. For a while, the dark room is full of nothing but the slick sounds of their mouths and desperate, breathless breathing.

Then Steve rolls them over, pushing his hand under Dean's shirts. This angle lets him deeper into Dean's mouth, tasting the ghost of the alcohol on his tongue, and he makes an involuntary sound, his knee digging into the mattress between Dean's. The heel of his palm sits gently at the center of Dean's ribcage, where the bone ends and gives way to muscle and hollow organs, and he can feel the throb of Dean's heart there, the way it speeds up when Steve moves his knee.

Dean sucks on Steve's tongue, scrapes its underside with his own. Steve exhales harshly, hips jerking forward. Dean rolls them again and attacks Steve's mouth anew, his hand calloused and perfect on Steve's jaw, and with his other, he's fumbling with their pants, struggling to get up to his knees and get his button undone at the same time, knees slipping on the silk-smooth comforter.

Steve laughs against him. Pulls their mouths apart long enough to push upright, somehow, with his elbows; Dean yanks his overshirt off, and then the t-shirt underneath, arms going over his head to pull them off, and Steve watches the pale, freckled skin as it's revealed, more scars there than he remembers.

"Steve."

Dean's voice is low and dark. Steve's eyes slide up to meet his and find them dark and intent.

Dean's hands go for Steve's waistband, but Steve draws him in by his hands instead, drawing him in. He puts a hand to the mattress beside Steve to keep upright as he's drawn into the kiss, Steve cradling his face. His other knee digs into the inside of Steve's; after a minute, as he gives into the kiss, opening his mouth for Steve to delve in, stroking, he moves his hand to Steve's thigh, instead, and uses it to support his weight. His thumb strokes slowly back and forth along the thin fabric of Steve's khakis and the quivering muscle underneath, in time to the languid movements of Steve's tongue in his mouth.

Steve lowers him backward, slowly, still mouthing at his skin, drawing his kisses down to the corner of Dean's mouth, then his neck, his collarbone, and down his heaving chest and quaking abdominal muscles until he's at the crease of his hip and thigh, exhaling warm breaths there. Dean's nearly stopped breathing; his hands are clenched in the comforter on either side of him, his thighs taut with the effort not to thrust up.

Steve hasn't done this before, though he'd tried, last time. He does it delicately now, starting with licks, and then carefully taking the head into his mouth, careful to shield his teeth with his lips. Looking up at Dean the whole time, watching for cues, for signs he's doing this wrong. But Dean's eyes are screwed shut; he's breathing hard; he's--

"Dean." Steve's up in a flash, hand sliding up Dean's flank. To his face, and the tears hot on the skin there. "What's wrong? What did I do?"

"Nothing," Dean grits out. He's already rolling over, sitting up, curling around himself, and Steve braces a forearm across his bare chest, doesn't let him.

"Dean--"

"Let _go_."

Steve releases him immediately. He sits back, and Dean sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His shoulder blades jut out from the rest of his back, quivering.

"Dean," Steve says helplessly. "What did--"

The knob at the top of Dean's spine stands out as fiercely as his shoulder blades. "Nothing," he says. "Forget about it."

"I'm not going to forget," Steve says. Righteous anger entering his voice. "Something hurt you, what is--"

"This isn't for me, okay?!" Dean grips the edge of the mattress, knuckles white. "I don't need--fucking Captain America sucking my dick."

Steve sits back on his heels. His face feels hot, like he's been slapped.

"You don't want it?"

Dean is still for a minute, gripping the side of the bed. Then he mutters something that sounds like _I'm not worth it_ , and Steve feels things slipping out of his fingers, feels a helplessness like finding out what happened to Bucky. "Dean--"

"No." Dean pushes off from the bed. Steve watches him go, kneeling there in just his khakis and nothing else amid the twisted sheets, watches Dean slide under the blankets of the other, unmade bed.

He kneels there, hands curled emptily on his knees, and feels more helpless than he ever did as a ninety-pound kid beaten dazed and bloody.

 

 

 

The next morning, he wakes to an empty room. The other bed is unmade, and empty, and there's no bag by the door, or on the sink counter.

There is a ten dollar bill on the nightstand between the beds, and for a minute, Steve thinks it's for him, that Dean left it for him like some sort of payment for services (not) rendered. Then he realizes it's the tip for the housekeeper, and he drops his head back into the pillow.

He brings his arm up over his face as he squeezes his eyes shut, clenching his teeth.

After a few minutes, he sits up in the sheets. He wipes his face.

Then he gets dressed and goes to meet Sam.

 

 

 

 


End file.
